Rare Lowry painting on display for a limited five days

It’s almost 25 years since Lowry’s painting A Cricket Match was last seen on public display.

At that time, it was part of a pre-auction display at Sotheby’s, where it was sold for £282,000 – then a record price for one of Lowry’s works.

Before its private sale in 1996, Lowry had exhibited the painting publicly only once, at an exhibition in London in 1939.

Now it is going under the hammer again at Sotheby’s on 18 June 2019, and this time is expected to fetch in the region of £1.2m.

Ahead of the auction, for five days only, The Lowry Gallery at Salford Quays is showing the painting alongside its free exhibition LS Lowry: The Art & The Artist.

“This exceptional painting is both a ‘classic’ Lowry, depicting the hard life of the industrial cities at the turn of the 20th century, and also quite rare in its depiction of a cricket match, even though cricket has always been very much part of Manchester life,” says Simon Hucker, senior specialist for modern and post-war British art at Sotheby’s.

“Coinciding with the run-up to the Cricket World Cup in June, this special exhibition in Lowry’s beloved Salford is a fantastic opportunity for art lovers and cricket fans alike to see a different element of Lowry’s world-view.”

The display at The Lowry kick-starts a summer of cricket in Greater Manchester – as neighbouring Emirates Old Trafford gets set to host fixtures as part of the ICC Cricket World Cup in June and July.

It also comes among a new buzz about Lowry’s life ahead of the release of a new film this summer, Mrs Lowry & Son. The film starring Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave, depicts the relationship between Lowry (Spall) and his mother Elizabeth (Redgrave) with whom the artist lived until her death in 1939, when Lowry was 52-years-old.

A Cricket Match, is available to view at The Lowry arts centre until 5pm on Monday 27 May 2019 in its free LS Lowry: The Art & The Artist exhibition. Open Sun-Fri, 11am-5pm; and Sat, 10am-5pm.

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